LT Spice flaws?

You'll find a rectangular 'European Resistor' in Misc. I only use them when I want to indicate a load, or significant dissipation.

'Pen thickness' under control panel/drafting options can make the lines thicker, and 'Hot Keys' can configure the keyboard option. I use R for rotate, W for wire ctrl-C for copy, M for move D for drag etc.

But yes, the UI isn't its strong point.

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Cheers 
Clive

Great, thanks Clive. I had scanned the settings but clearly not thoroughly enough!

Terry

The HELP isn't very good. Some important things aren't mentioned at all. Google often provides better help, and there are some good tutorial/manuals online.

I use it sometimes just to create graphs for manuals, not necessarily actual electronics, but you have to play with settings to get a good image.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

Science teaches us to doubt. 

  Claude Bernard

Other than what has been mentioned, you can make your own symbol. For example, inside:

.\Documents\LTspiceXVII\lib\sym

is the file res.asy, the resistor symbol. You can make your own and name it res1.asy, or whatever. Then you place that instead. The only issue is shar ing the schematics--you'd need to manage the extra symbol.

You can simply replace res.asy with your own, but again, compatibility is n ice and you'd need to pay attention to pin locations if you wish to maintai n compatibility (sharing). (If the pin locations are held, you wouldn't nee d symbol sharing.) Also, the automatic update is convenient but it replaces all the standard lib items. That means you'd need to do your own "updates" after the update to get your symbol back.

It pushes the boundaries of what one software dev should really take on as an individual project and suffers for it in some areas due to the extreme not-designed-here mentality it was done with.

That is to say they could have kept the engine closed source and used an off-the-shelf UI system like Qt to make it intrinsically cross-platform and a nicer interface but didn't do that for whatever reason.

It runs OK on linux under Wine but some things don't work quite right e.g. copy and pasting across schematics is borked under Wine on every Linux variant I've tried it on.

Thanks for those further posts.

Anyone know if it?s possible to set a hotkey for a component not on the list? For example, I?d like ?R? to place a ? ??European resistor? rather than the zigzag version.

Not quite. I've often felt like that too. Now there are two of us. :-)

Mine's not Pro though. Does the Pro version have 3D?

It looks like an afterthought. The default settings are particularly ugly, although one can get used to most things with time.

Changing the symbol for a resistor is actually not a big deal. In fact, I thought they had symbols for the more European looking components, but mayb e I'm thinking of something else.

Many of the initial issues are not a big deal once you get used to them. M y complain with LTspice is the difficulty with managing new device models. While there is info available on adding components to a given design, they nearly all talk about either adding the component to the master library or adding them to the local design library rather than a personal common libr ary not part of any design.

Then there is the fact that while there are multiple ways to do many tasks, none of them are simple and/or obvious. The tool is highly cranky about t iny details with little rhyme or reason. There is a support group that has a handful of "experts" who often start off with telling you to read the he lp file even though the help file is very hard to search, hard to read and in some cases contains incorrect or misleading info.

There is also a "wiki" which by definition allows user input, but this wiki has all input disabled other than by the owner. Trying to get errors in t hat site fixed takes an act of god.

On the upside, once you get over the various "humps" it can be a very usefu l tool for free. Just learn to love the humps.

--

  Rick C. 

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I think M is by default in schematic capture the "move" command. I defined the N as the "drag" command so they are next to one another. Then I conti nued to make B the "copy" command and V to draw a wire. That puts 90% of m y key action where my hand doesn't have to move. I could reach 99% if I us ed something nearby for delete and maybe redefined escape which I'm not sur e you can do.

+1 on the thicker line width, I think I'm using 3 or maybe 4 rather than 1 because printing to PDF would not show up. I haven't found a way to make p lots use thicker lines though so they can be printed to readable PDFs.

Turns out you can add lines and printing to the plots using drawing command s. I've used that to label printouts.

You can save your plot setups .plt file extension I believe. Very handy! It saves all the signals you are viewing and the scale factors on the axes in addition to the colors. You can also define custom colors so they show up better.

Many, many user tips abound. So many they are hard to learn about.

Sometimes it's better to have a vanilla tool and just get the job done with out all the drama of a bazillion petty details to memorize.

--

  Rick C. 

  + Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging 
  + Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

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Copy and paste is borked under Windows. You have to do the copy, then you can only switch schematics one way or the command is ended. I think it's w ith the TAB key. Click the mouse on the tab and the command is ended. Lot s of goofy little things like this to learn.

What really bugs me though is the arcane details of modifying symbols and a dding new models. I recently had a lengthy discussion about one way to do this where I was pointed to the help file only to find the help file had ra ther misleading data. Then people were other than polite discussing it as if the confusion is the user's fault. After saying "here's a way that work s" and being shown it doesn't work the response was that the behavior of th e generated .net file command syntax is exactly as documented even though . net file syntax was not part of the original discussion. But that was the level of support in the help file.

So be prepared to learn how the piston rings work if you want to drive anyw here other than the corner market.

--

  Rick C. 

  -- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging 
  -- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

Thanks, good to know!

I went from CM 6 to CM 2000 Pro. Not sure what the differences are with ? ??Pro?. Never use the TraxMaker section so can?t answer your question re 3D.

I have a CM puzzle which I?ll raise in a fresh post and hope you se e it.

I like it. Mostly. I've used much worse, and had to pay for it.

I don't suppose you kids remember typing netlists.

It annoys me when software developers don't follow the standard conventions of the platform they're developing for like in most Windows software undo is cntl + Z and cntl + Y. in Spice it's F9 and Shift + F9 problem is a lot of newer PCs have functions like the backlight control bound to those keys and you have to press a "Fn" button to activate the functions.

And if you can't change the bindings in the application and e.g. have to run the application on a machine where you're not root and can't change the function key mapping either you're left having to do a three-finger salute to undo.

There are good reasons not to mess with the conventions from a usability perspective mainly because you have some guarantee nobody else on the hardware/OS side has or will bind them to anything.

You can change the key bindings. My version of LTspice does use Ctl-Z and Ctl-Y for undo/redo. I couldn't stand F9 either

As for the look of components, you can create your own .ASY file and make it look like you want to, except for encrypted AD or LT parts.

I much prefer the wiggly resistor look..... /\/\/\/\/\/\ .......

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you can only switch schematics one way or the command is ended. I think it 's with the TAB key. Click the mouse on the tab and the command is ended. Lots of goofy little things like this to learn.

nd adding new models. I recently had a lengthy discussion about one way to do this where I was pointed to the help file only to find the help file ha d rather misleading data. Then people were other than polite discussing it as if the confusion is the user's fault. After saying "here's a way that works" and being shown it doesn't work the response was that the behavior o f the generated .net file command syntax is exactly as documented even thou gh .net file syntax was not part of the original discussion. But that was the level of support in the help file.

anywhere other than the corner market.

This drove me nuts on my last machine until someone pointed out the setting for this is in the BIOS and can be switched.

Not sure if that works for all computers, but I've used it on a couple.

--

  Rick C. 

  -+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging 
  -+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

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you can only switch schematics one way or the command is ended. I think i t's with the TAB key. Click the mouse on the tab and the command is ended. Lots of goofy little things like this to learn.

and adding new models. I recently had a lengthy discussion about one way t o do this where I was pointed to the help file only to find the help file h ad rather misleading data. Then people were other than polite discussing i t as if the confusion is the user's fault. After saying "here's a way that works" and being shown it doesn't work the response was that the behavior of the generated .net file command syntax is exactly as documented even tho ugh .net file syntax was not part of the original discussion. But that was the level of support in the help file.

anywhere other than the corner market.

Making a .ASY file is a PITA. If you don't like the schematic editor inter face, you will really hate the symbol editor interface which uses different default key bindings!!!

You couldn't make this stuff up.

I wonder if LTspice has a key that scrambles the key mappings?

--

  Rick C. 

  +- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging 
  +- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

But LT Spice has an UNDO icon right in the toolbar. You don't have to take your hand off the mouse.

At least under Windows, copying a part or a chunk of circuit between schematics is easy. No hotkeys, just the copy symbol on the toolbar.

I think the only hotkey I use in LT is g for ground.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

Science teaches us to doubt. 

  Claude Bernard

That's what I like about CircuitMaker 2000. Creating a "common personal library not part of any design" is straightforward, especially for the PCB section. I've been using my own footprints exclusively for a decade and a half. Macros for the schematic portion is somewhat more convoluted but not too bad.

Designs don't have to be part of a project. One can draw a schematic or PCB layout and save it as a standalone file.

That's what I think of as the Windoze approach.

The old helicopter joke.

No argument there. I still have a lot to learn about LTSpice though.